


lovesong

by cottagecorekim, snowandwolves



Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: F/F, Feelings, Future Fic, Internalized Homophobia, Mutual Pining, post-disbandment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:49:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29997561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottagecorekim/pseuds/cottagecorekim, https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowandwolves/pseuds/snowandwolves
Summary: The very long process in which Lisa figures out how to love herself and Jennie learns how to love Lisa.
Relationships: Jennie Kim/Lalisa Manoban | Lisa
Comments: 57
Kudos: 108





	1. Chapter 1

You have learned to live a life without Jennie.

But Jennie has always had this damned ability to make you forget everything you've ever learned, so when she shows up on your doorstep with her daughter at seven in the morning and her luggage beside her feet, you fumble. There's this shy smile on her face like she didn't really expect to be here either, a shine in her eyes that tells you that she missed you, a tremor in her hands like she's barely stopping herself from hugging you. It feels oh-so-familiar, and you haven't even let her in yet, but there's a part of you that basks in her sudden company.

You hate that.

"I need coffee for this," you deadpan because Jennie has thrown your morning routine and your heart off-course, and you're not entirely sure whether to take it as a pleasant surprise or a triggering event. You know the latter was never an option (your therapist would be so disappointed), but that doesn't stop you from at least _trying_ to remember what you've learned.

Jennie lets out a timid laugh, and the sound scrapes against your supposedly brand new heart. "Rude. How about a deal? If you let us in, I'll make your coffee just the way you like it."

You want to tell her that she shouldn't know how you take your coffee, that things change, that _you've_ changed, but the soft spot you have for her rebels against the idea so you put on your best smile instead. It feels painful because it _is_. You feel unbalanced and unsettled, like your heart's trying to remember how to stand up for itself after a long time of laying down for Jennie to step on it. It fails spectacularly, and you sigh around your brittle smile, accepting that this is how today will go.

"Deal," you say as lightly as you can. "Not like I can send you back to Paris anyway."

Jennie rolls her eyes as she helps you drag their luggage into your home. "Like you could do that."

You want to retort that maybe you _could_ do exactly that because you have learned a little bit about self-preservation, but then little Leia blinks tiredly up at you. It makes your heart seize because the universe was playing a sick joke when this three-year-old was born with _your_ eyes even though you were nowhere near a part of this little miracle. Leia opens her arms to you, and you think that if nothing else, this surprise visit gave you her special brand of hugs. She wraps her arms around your neck as soon as you scoop her up, dropping a wet kiss on your cheek like this is what she does every morning.

You decide that today, you'll let yourself want to be theirs.

Your therapist is going to kill you for it, but she did say that it's important to feel and process emotions. Hopefully, she'll be proud of your ability to remind yourself of the coping mechanisms she's tried to get you to learn.

"Hello, darling girl. It's a little too early for your mother to get you on a plane huh?" You talk to the child in your arms, voice soft and adoring, your body automatically adjusts to her weight, your muscles remembering what it feels like to hold this sweetheart.

Leia buries her face into your neck at the sound of your voice, and it makes the last of your shock give way to fondness.

"She misses you," Jennie says as she closes and locks your front door like she lives here. "If you ask her, she'll tell you that I should've brought her here sooner."

You don't look at her, but you let a small smile escape your lips. "And whose fault is it that I haven't seen you in a year? What do you think, love?" Leia giggles sleepily into your neck, oblivious to the grudge hidden behind your words, and you tighten your arms around her, not wanting to let her go just yet.

"Been a good year without you being annoying," Jennie retorts. Something about the way she says it makes you look up at her, and you find her with her arms around herself despite the taunting of her raised eyebrow.

You let her get away with her dry humor, understanding that it's an act of mercy for the both of you. You turn your attention back on Leia when she pulls back groggily, a toothy grin on her lips. She presses her little hand on your cheek and you take it instantly, pressing a kiss on her palm and smiling when she giggles at the feeling.

"Li," your nickname rolling off of her stumbling tongue does horrible things to your heart because there are only two people who have ever called you that and both of them are in your home like this is where they should always be (where _you've_ always wanted them to be). "Miss you."

Her soft declaration soothes an ache deep inside you, and you decide that Leia must be an angel.

"I missed you, too, Leia," you murmur.

When you lift your gaze back onto Jennie, you catch a look that you don't try to decipher because you don't need to.

It's longing.

You've seen that look on your own face day after day, their year-long absence only making it more prominent in the lines of your forehead and the crinkles of your eyes. You decide to ignore it, hoping that you'll forget how longing looks like on Jennie before the day ends so that you don't dream of it.

"I was promised coffee," you tell Jennie.

She laughs, and it sounds tired but relieved. "Brat. Lead the way, then."

You turn around as soon as she speaks because if you don't, then you might just pull her into your arms. It'll feel too much like the family you wish to be a part of, the kind of morning that you'd want for the rest of your life, the dream that will probably never come true. Your home already feels too full with both Jennie and Leia in the haven you've created for yourself. This is how you know that you won't survive having Jennie in your arms.

You have learned a lot in the past year.

Today, you learn that your heart is still theirs.

\--------------------

You wait for Lisa to get your daughter settled in her bedroom. You don't follow them because you're afraid that you won't ever leave, afraid to step foot in a bedroom that you know Lisa has shared with others, afraid to find traces of you like you know you will.

Instead, you start on coffee. You don't pay attention to the way you grab Lisa's favorite mug, but you do notice that the mug you claimed when you were all living in the dorm is at the back of the row. You put two teaspoons of sugar into Lisa's mug, filing a quarter of it with milk. You try not to think about how Lisa still keeps pieces of you in a home you've never been to before and how your heart still has its habits from a past you've tried to forget.

You look up when Lisa enters the kitchen, sitting on the cold leather seat of her table for four and not quite looking at you. You understand her avoidance – after all, you _did_ show up unannounced. You wonder how she's feeling, if your being here is doing more harm than good, if she's missed you as much as you've missed her. You won't tell her that last one because there's hope in _I missed you_. There's also hurt in it too, and you know that you have hurt her enough for two lifetimes.

"Why are you here, of all places?" She asks but not unkindly. There's nothing hard or harsh about it, but there's a part of you that wants to flinch.

You keep your composure, raising an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean _of all places_?" You say as you sit across from her, your hands wrapped around your favorite mug.

Lisa takes a sip from her own mug, letting a sound you're sure she didn't mean to make escape her throat. "Chaeng has an apartment in Paris, Jisoo is somewhere in the States, and Thailand is a long way from France."

"Thailand seems to be the perfect place to visit in February," you respond, shrugging to throw her off from the truth you try to hide.

But Lisa knows you like the back of her hand so you're not really surprised or offended when she rolls her eyes. "That's a lame excuse. Come up with another one," she says as she sets her mug on the wood, tilting her head slightly to the side like she's scrutinizing you.

You didn't see her for a year, but you're aware that a lot can change in that span of time. This Lisa is rough around the edges as if she'd decided to wear the thorns you gave to her like armor. You saw it when she first opened her front door and regarded you and your daughter impassively. You felt it when she softened only for Leia and ignored you for as long as it took for her to process your ambush. You hear it now in the way she skips small talk altogether and stares at you like she's trying to pull the truth out of your cruel fingers.

Still, you play the game. It's an addiction. “I did hear that your house has got a nice view, a sophisticated interior, a memorial to old golden days in your studio, and that your garden is somewhere that Leia would love to run around in."

Her stare doesn't waver, and you wonder if you've hurt her enough to turn her heart into stone. "Leia _does_ miss you," you add, the first honest thing you've said today, your attempt at finding the part of her heart that isn't thorn or stone.

"It's been a year, Jennie," she says quietly. It wasn't meant to hurt, but you can't help the guilt that twists and turns in your stomach because it _has_ been a year, and it's no one's fault but your own.

You lift your gaze up at her, daring yourself to see the devastation you've caused, but you find her looking at your left hand and it's only then that you realize you've been thumbing the ring she gave you that you wear on your middle finger, right next to your wedding ring. It's another one of those habits that your heart has yet to kick. She softens, and you can't begin to fathom how she's managed to get used to losing you enough to ignore everything else that isn't a piece of herself on you.

"Paris has done you good. You look beautiful," she says, a consolation for the way she doesn't welcome you with open arms.

"Thailand looks well on you, too. It's weird that you've got your bangs from 2020, but long, black hair still suits you so good," you offer another truth.

You reach forward to fix her bangs, and you're surprised that she doesn't flinch at the same time that you aren't because you know that you're her exception to the many rules she's created for herself. She takes your hand in hers, and her warmth soothes the part of you that always longs for her.

" _I_ missed you," you sigh, letting her win the game with one simple but heavy admission as you look at the way your thumb rubs her skin back and forth.

Her fingers curl around your palm, and you haven't really allowed yourself to realize exactly how much you missed her until this moment.

"Of course, you do," Lisa says, achingly soft, and it's the closest you'll get to forgiveness because you don't give her an apology.

You revel at the way she chuckles at your half-hearted glare, the way she accepts your apology even though it's nowhere near enough, the way she shrugs off everything heavy around the both of you until you're just Jennie and she's just Lisa.

"How long do you need to stay?" Lisa asks.

"You make it sound like you don't want us here."

She laughs. "Your daughter's definitely welcome here anytime. You, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about."

"You're still annoying, Lisa-yah," you say, letting your banter push you into nostalgic comfort as you remember all the times she's made you laugh before everything got fucked up and complicated. "Leia's growing fast."

Lisa's smile softens around the edges, her fondness for your daughter all too apparent, and you wonder how she sees Leia. After all, it's one of the many things you don't talk about – how Leia has Lisa's exact shade of brown eyes. Sometimes, you catch yourself wishing Leia is Lisa's, but that's a can of worms you're not sure you'll survive because you're too aware of your part in the mess.

"We'll have to leave by Monday morning. I have a new line to launch on Wednesday," you answer her.

There's a quick flash of disappointment in Lisa's eyes, and it isn't enough to dampen her smile, but it reminds you that you've always been too good at toeing the line between loving her like she's nothing and loving her like she's everything. You do things like this: buy a plane ticket to Thailand in the middle of the night because you can't take another day of missing her only to tell her that you don't have enough time to let her miss you a little less not even an hour into arriving back into her orbit.

"Well, you're welcome here as long as you cook for me. You have a lot to make up for the last twelve months, you know," Lisa teases, light-hearted and calm.

It's always been this way for them – so much to make up for and never enough time. As you stand to clean up your empty mugs of coffee, you find yourself wishing that Lisa wasn't so forgiving because, with all the hurt you've caused her, you should really be on your knees and begging for it. Maybe then you'd actually do something to keep yourself from doing the same things over and over again.

Maybe then, you'll finally manage to kick your heart's stupid habit of hurting Lisa.

\--------------------

You sigh as you kick the covers off of yourself, annoyed that you still let Jennie wiggle her way into your heart even after repeatedly and forcefully telling yourself that more hurt is the last thing you need. You wonder why this keeps happening. You think about how dinner was lively enough to fill your normally lonely house with a strange kind of happiness you didn't know you wanted. You think about Leia's attempt to feed you a spoonful of pasta only to smear it all over your mouth and your shirt. You think about the way Jennie stopped eating just to _look_ at you when you couldn't hold your laughter in because Leia decided to smear sauce all over her own mouth, thinking that it looked cool.

Dinner left you feeling like you’re starved of something else, something you deserve, something like home. It's addicting. But it's also a one-way ticket to the rabbit hole you find yourself in at one in the morning.

You had offered to let Jennie take your bed for the night, and you didn't really think of the way her scent clings to sheets when you gallantly insisted but now that you're drowning in feelings at one in the fucking morning, it's all you can think about. Your only consolation is that she didn't ask you to share your bed with her. You're grateful for that because you'd have said _yes_ without a moment's hesitation, not stopping to think about the devastation that having her so close to you can cause. You'd have let her head rest on your chest even when it feels like it's cracking open. You'd have let her scatter memories like how she smells in the mornings, how she nuzzles her nose into your neck, how you used to breathe her in. You'd have let her walk out of your front door with the few beating pieces you call a heart. And then she'll leave, and you'll be left behind struggling to re-learn how to sleep without her weight on you, without her scent in your lungs, without a heart. You don't need that.

Trying to be as silent as possible, you wander out of your guest room. You pad quietly through the hall, doing your best not to step on creaky floorboards because if Jennie wakes up, she'll come to find you and you'll end up having conversations you never seem to be ready for.

When your bedroom door opens as soon as you step right next to it, you wonder exactly what you did for the universe to hate you this much.

"Li?"

The voice sounds younger than you're expecting, so you force yourself to unfreeze just enough to meet sleepy brown eyes. You drop to your knees out of instinct, offering your palm to Leia and coaxing her out of the room because if you look close enough, you'll see Jennie's sleeping form and it'll remind you of nights spent being held by her and days spent trying to find a love that's yours to claim.

As quietly as possible, you close your bedroom door shut, keeping your gaze on Leia.

"Hello, love," you whisper as you tug her closer and let her wrap her arms around your neck. "Why are you awake?"

You rub her back when she whines, nuzzling into your neck. "Do you want to sleep some more?"

But you feel her shake her head, so you sigh. "Alright. Want to see the garden with me?"

"'Kay," she says before pulling away from you but not before taking your hand like she can't bear to be away from you.

It makes your heart ache in ways you didn't know it could because you'd give Leia the world if she asked for it. You're not sure if you're allowed to feel this way, and you're not sure whether or not you should hate how you'd give everything to her anyway.

Leia looks up at you expectantly, and you swear that your insides shift to make enough space for her.

"Milk?" She asks adorably.

In spite of yourself, you chuckle quietly. "Just a little bit, okay? We wouldn't want to make your mother angry, do we?"

She smiles brightly and it makes her look so much like Jennie that you can't help but turn away if only to save yourself from the onslaught of memories you're trying so hard not to drown in.

You speak in mumbles and whispers as you navigate through the kitchen, shushing Leia when she gets a little too loud in her excitement. You smile through it all because you _did_ miss spending time with her. You don't let go of her hand even as you make your hot chocolate and as you answer her whispered questions as best as you can. She plays with your fingers while she waits for you to finish making your drink, and you try not to think about how Jennie does the same thing when she's thinking.

By the time you make it to your garden, you have a blanket draped on your arm, Leia's hand still in yours, both of you holding your respective drinks. You watch Leia's eyes widen in amazement, and a part of you preens at her awe.

The first thing you see every time you step out here is the small gazebo right in the middle of your garden. It's lined with fairy lights and all the flowers that bloom all year round because Jennie likes to be surrounded by both when her pen moves across pages, writing music that'll change the world.

There's a playground just a few paces from the gazebo. You tried to fool yourself into thinking that you decided to get this addition for the family you may have someday. But the truth of the matter is that it's there because you once spent an entire day at the park with Leia, and you couldn't get the image of her giggling as you sat with her on a swing somewhere in the midst of Paris.

As you let Leia process everything that she's seeing, you think about how you ended up buying the empty lot next to yours just so you could make sure that your garden is big enough for dogs to run in. You shake your head at yourself because you're only now realizing how horrible you at are at trying to cut Jennie out of everything you do.

You urge Leia into the gazebo, letting her stop you once in a while so that she can marvel at the lanterns that light up the way.

"Pretty," Leia mumbles when she sees the flowers up close.

"You like it?"

Leia nods, smile firmly in place. "I love!"

You press your finger on her dimple, chuckling at her awe. "I'm glad."

You make sure to tug the screen curtains in place, not wanting mosquitoes to make a juice box out of you and Leia. It's a warm night so you turn on the overhead fan, letting its quiet noise soothe something in you. Leia tugs you to the rocking chair you got because you loved how the motion comforts you, and you can't help but wonder how much of yourself you'll find in all the little things that she loves.

Leia settles herself against you as soon as you sit on the chair, secure in the knowledge that your lap is always open for her. She giggles as soon as you push on the ground to get the rocking chair going.

"Li," she says, her hands clutching her sippy cup carefully. "Sing?"

You wink at her over the rim of your mug. "What's the magic word?"

She frowns in thought for a second before her whole face brightens once again. "Please?"

You nod adoringly, pressing your nose into her hair in affection. She giggles at the feeling, and you can't help the fondness you feel for this little girl. "Good job, darling."

You don't think about what song you're going to sing. Instead, you drink about half of your hot chocolate despite knowing that it's not going to do your voice any good. You set your mug on the table beside you, using both arms to pull Leia closer to you. She follows the motion easily as she sips rather loudly from her cup. It makes the fondness you feel for her grow so much that you think you might choke on your heartstrings.

_"And you can tell everybody this is your song. It may be quite simple but now that it's done,"_ you start singing, idly rubbing your palm on Leia's back. _"I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind that I put down in words, how wonderful life is while you're in the world."_

Leia starts swaying in your arms, her eyes closed, a small smile on her face like your voice can make her dream about everything good in this world. You don't know why, but your brow furrows and the back of your eyes start to burn. You keep singing despite the longing that wraps itself around your throat.

_"So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do,"_ Leia looks up at you and you can't help but cup her cheek. _"You see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue. Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean, yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen."_

She giggles the way she did the first time you sang this song to her. You think maybe singing it now wasn't the best idea – not when you're trying so hard not to miss them enough to ask them to stay. After all, it's a pointless thing to do because this gazebo isn’t where Jennie writes music, that playground isn't where Leia gets a belly full of laughter, and this house isn't where their hearts are. They have built a life in a world so far removed from yours, and you know that no matter how much you stitch pieces of them in your garden, in your kitchen, in every part of your house, it won't be enough to convince them that this is ( _you are_ ) home.

"One more, please?" Leia asks.

You give her a smile because you want her to learn how to recognize unconditional love. "Alright, darling girl. But will you try to sleep, please? You really shouldn't be awake, Leia. Your mother's going to be mad at us, and she won't make us pancakes. You don't want that, do you?"

Leia gasps like it's the worst thing ever, and you can't help the way you feel like you want to protect her from everything that could hurt her.

"But Mommy promised!"

"I know, love. And she won't ever break a promise she made to you. But let's try not to make her mad, okay? I want those pancakes, too," you say soothingly, winking at her conspiratorially.

"'Kay," she agrees easily as she hands you her sippy cup to put beside your mug on the table before she settles deeper into the spaces of your body. "Sing, please."

You snort. "Alright, alright. You're as demanding as your mother, you know."

You doubt she understands everything you're saying, but she whines purely because you aren't singing. You press your nose against her cheek before dropping a kiss on her temple.

"I love you, Leia," you whisper into her hair, unable to stop the words from slipping past your lips.

She shifts to press a kiss on your cheek, and your heart unravels at the seams. "I love you, too, Li."

It's the first time she speaks in startling clarity. It settles something in your chest because this is how you know that Leia was raised in love because she knows how to say it like she's heard it over and over again, heavier each time, until she learned how to say it back with all the truth she had in her three-year-old body. It warms you to think that Jennie might have whispered the words tenderly enough for it to echo in Leia's dreams. But it destroys you to think that Leia might have watched Jennie stand on her tiptoes just to breathe the words against a stubbled cheek so many times that she learned how to say it. You refuse to think that this kind of love came from Jennie's husband. It's not. It's not because you know what Jennie's love looks like from the countless heartbreaking moments you watched it bless someone else. It's the kind of love you see on Leia's face, and it is Jennie's and no one else's. You try not to think about why that is because you are not so cruel as to wish heartbreak on someone else.

Instead, you give Leia's temple another kiss, deciding to sing a song no one has ever heard of. You wrote it in tears, a glass of whiskey in your hand, your mind numb with memories, your heart crushed. You never recorded it because it is pain in its finest form, and you didn't think you could survive reliving the night you wrote it over and over again every single time it plays on the radio. You don't know why you're choosing to sing it now, but with everything that the past 24 hours did to your already ruined soul, it seems appropriate.

You hope that Leia falls asleep before the chorus.

_"I never should have kissed, kissed your hand,"_ you sing shakily at first, feeling your stomach twist and turn the way it did when the whiskey settled into the gaping hole that is your body. _"I am under your control, I will never understand. I never should have said, "I love you." You never said it back, so why do I still care for you?"_

Leia hums in time with the melody. You smile in spite of yourself, thanking whatever god is out there that she doesn't seem to understand. _"Stranger, that's all I see. When I look into your eyes, a soulmate who wasn't meant to be."_

She looks up at you, her eyes wide and round and so, _so_ brown, watching the way the song rips you apart even though she doesn't understand that that's what's happening.

_"Stranger,"_ you croon, trying for a smile and hoping to fool her into thinking that you're not just breathing out of habit, _"who knows all my secrets, can pull me apart and break my heart – a soulmate who wasn't meant to be."_

You choose to stop there, not wanting to sing _wish I could go back to the day we met and leave you be_ because that's not true, because you wrote that when you wanted nothing more for the pain to stop, because you allowed yourself to think about how happy you could be if you had never met Jennie. The next day, you loathed yourself for what you wrote.

You hum something untitled and unwritten and for a while before shifting to something much softer and kinder. It's a Thai lullaby that you've only ever heard from your mom. A few years ago, she sang it to you with the hopes of you passing it down to your kids. You remember how it triggered a memory of simpler times, and you had cried, clutching a wine glass like it's your lifeline and melting into your mother's embrace. You never thought you'd actually sing this to anyone, but it feels heartbreakingly right when Leia's eyelids start to droop.

You let your body yield and bend, wanting Leia to feel safe and warm and loved as she drifts off to sleep.

Maybe it's the song or maybe it's Leia's weight against your heart or maybe it's your need to protect her from nightmares. Whatever it is, it doesn't take long for sleep to weigh heavily in your bones. You fall asleep like that – your bruised body curled around the sweetest little miracle, a mug of hot chocolate, a sippy cup of warm milk, and a pair of infinitely sad eyes bearing witness to the depth of the love you hold for yet another who isn't yours.

\--------------------

You wake up rather violently because it's rare for your maternal instincts to fail you. Leia isn't asleep beside you anymore, and you try your best to swallow the suddenly rising panic somewhere between your heart and your throat. You toss yourself out of bed, and you won't be able to explain it, but the first place you check is the guest room. When you see that Lisa isn't where she's supposed to be either, you feel a little calmer.

It's stupid because Lisa has no reason to take care of your daughter when she wakes up in the middle of the night and there's always the chance that Leia might not even be with her, but you know Lisa like the back of your hand, and it's more than enough for you to trust that the two most important people in your life are together.

(Your husband doesn't make it to the list of people you would die for. The wedding ring tightens like a noose around your finger.)

You find Lisa's studio first, and you resist the urge to delve deeper into the room.

Music has always been a weird thing with Lisa. She could dance to pop and hip hop, and she wouldn't give a fuck about who's watching. It was only later on that Lisa tried her hand at writing something other than rap lines. You remember being blown away the first time she sent you a copy of her raw vocals, the sheer vulnerability of her lyrics, the gentle ebb and flow of her melody. It felt deeply personal, and you understood why she was always so particular about who hears her demos. She hasn't sent you anything new in the last couple of years, and that's why you carefully back out of the room before you forget the fact that you no longer have the right to hear her music before the rest of the world does.

They aren't in the living room, and you try not to think about how many times Lisa might have sat on the couch and had deep conversations over fries and beer with someone who isn't you during the year you decided to avoid her.

Eventually, you find the screen door that leads to the garden. The thought of seeing it excites you because Chaeyoung told you much about it, about how it's perfect for a family, about the way Lisa never seems to be satisfied with it.

From your spot by the door, you can vaguely make out Lisa sitting inside a gazebo. It's beautiful in a way that makes your hands itch with the almost overwhelming desire to write something, anything. You swallow around the lump in your throat, trying to ignore the sinking feeling that came with the brief thought that Lisa might have designed everything about this garden with the thought of you.

Lisa isn't facing your direction, but the closer you get, the more you hear snippets of a conversation she's having with Leia. Something inside you loosens with the knowledge that they _are_ together and that there's nothing to worry about.

This time, you do nothing to quell your curiosity as you carefully lean against the doorframe of the gazebo.

"Alright, darling girl," you hear Lisa tell your daughter with a tone so tender that it carries over her whole attempt to convince Leia to try going back to sleep. You bite your bottom lip to suppress your smile because it's so apparent that Leia has Lisa wrapped around her little pinky finger.

You rip yourself out of your thoughts just in time to hear Leia say _I love you_. And you're not perfect – far from it, in fact. There are parts of you that are diseased and rotten, and you know this because Lisa is a living reminder that you are capable of being cruel and selfish and greedy. But, at the very least, you are proud of how you have raised Leia. You are proud that she knows love, that, despite the odds, she knows nothing of the pain it can cause, that you've told her you love her enough for you to hear your own voice in the way she says it to Lisa. Leia isn't afraid to say _I love you_ , and you can't help the way you wish you could learn to have the same courage.

When Lisa finally starts singing, it doesn't instantly register that she wrote it or that it's _about you_. You get distracted by the fact that this is the first time you're hearing Lisa sing in a year, and even if you weren't meant to hear it, you still feel the familiar awe that you have reserved for when Lisa decides to leave her insecurities behind. It starts sinking in when Lisa's voice thickens, breaking in a million places, when she sings _I never should have said "I love you" – you never said it back, so why do I still care for you?_

Unbidden, you remember a balcony, two glasses of whiskey, turning over a new leaf, a declaration, a rejection, the future, a dance, a pathetic admission, Lisa, Lisa, _Lisa_.

So, when Lisa sings about a stranger, a soulmate who wasn't meant to be, and bone-deep pain, you know that she wrote it about you. You take it all – the unshed tears in Lisa's throat, the begging in her tone, and the utter defeat in the melody. You push your back harder against the wall beside the doorframe of a gazebo designed for you, closing your eyes when your bottom lip starts trembling because you don't deserve to cry.

Lisa doesn't continue the song, but you know that there's more to it – pain or anger or despair, you don't know – and you find yourself wishing she would if only to ruin you enough for your truth to come out of its hiding place.

And then, Lisa starts singing a lullaby in Thai.

Somehow, you think distantly as you keep your eyes tightly shut, this is infinitely worse.

You don't think about why you can understand it. It comes as natural to you as English and Korean, and you find yourself lost (so, _so_ lost) in the untitled lullaby that Lisa sings. You hear _I want to give you the world_ and _good night, darling_ and _I love you_ , and you bite your bottom lip until you taste blood because there's a whimper in your throat from a heart that is broken and terrified and, more than anything, wanting.

You clasp a hand over your mouth when Lisa starts slurring the words together until she does nothing but hum the fondness into the space they occupy. You keel over, drowning in unrelenting, absolute, and unfathomable longing. The noose from your wedding ring climbs up to your heart, wrapping hopelessness and regret and fear around the bruised organ.

You want them.

You want to find them when Leia wakes up and takes Lisa's hand for a midnight adventure. You want a garden where Leia can laugh, where Kuma and Kai run wild and free, where you can be in the midst of everything you have ever called beautiful. You want _we'll live in Paris for a year_. You want pancakes in the morning and negotiations in the gazebo and conversations over hot chocolate and milk and coffee. You want Lisa's achingly fond _I love you_ for Leia and, _god_ , for yourself. You want untitled songs and strange Thai lullabies and gentle humming. You want Leia. You want Lisa.

You want them.

You want to turn around and look at the image of Lisa and Leia, so you do. You want to go inside and see it up close, so you do. You want to cry, so you do.

You want them, this, _everything_.

Everything you don't have, everything you may never have, everything you weren't brave enough to have.

Your breath hitches, and it takes everything in you to keep a sob from ripping you apart. Longing is all you can feel, and you have never known anything as devastating as this. You reach a trembling hand and smooth your palm over Leia's head. You drop to one knee. You grasp the armrest as tightly as you dare, until your knuckles pale and your joints protest. You softly, slowly, secretly rest your forehead on Lisa's knee.

Lisa doesn't wake. She has always been a heavy sleeper, and this has always been how she missed the moments when you allowed yourself to be vulnerable, to be scared, to be in love with her.

You want to be punished, so you let the longing come close enough to killing you.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lisa and Jennie try to survive the rest of the weekend.

You wake slowly. Your body is stiff and heavy, and you blink dazedly at the sunlight creeping into the gazebo. For a few moments, you do nothing but try to recall what it was you were dreaming of before reality called you back. You remember four bodies scattered across the living room floor, in dance studios, on stage – you were dreaming about the past. It feels like a lifetime ago, and you heave a nostalgic sigh, letting the morning breeze crawl into your lungs.

A small body shifts on your lap, and you remember where you are and why you're here. You smile when you feel Leia burrow deeper into your shoulder, trying her best to escape the morning, her little hands digging into the soft cotton of your pajama shirt. Instinctively, you squeeze her with the arm you have wrapped around her, the dull ache in your muscles and the pain from your elbow confirming that you didn't let her go even in your sleep. You lift your head from where it had been resting a little uncomfortably on the wood of the rocking chair, attempting to stretch your legs.

Your right leg doesn't move.

The haze in your mind clears rather abruptly when you realize why.

Jennie rests by your feet, her legs tucked under her body, her head pillowed on the arm resting on your leg. She's facing you, her mouth slightly parted, and you want to look away but she has always been too beautiful to ignore. There's a hand wrapped around your ankle, a chest pressed against your shin, and you try not to think about how this might be Jennie's way of telling you that she's unwilling to let you go.

You blink, willing the image away, wishing the air back into your lungs, begging for a heartbeat that doesn't hurt. You blink, and she's still there, peaceful in her sleep, oblivious to the violent cracking in your chest that you vaguely recognize as the sound of you falling in love with her against every bit of your will.

You feel her breaths pass over the skin of your thigh, her weight warm and heavy and real, and _this_ – the reminder, the memories, the hope – is what you were trying to avoid. You remember that they're leaving tomorrow, and the unwanted reminder drags you into the kind of loneliness that aches and echoes and destroys.

You're not awake enough to protect yourself, to push her away, to hold yourself together. So, you fall apart, slowly and gently and unwillingly.

Leia shifts on your lap again, and you don't know why but you lift a hand to touch Jennie. You freeze when she inhales sharply, and you grit your teeth against the onslaught of memories that such a simple sound roused from where you shoved it harshly in the dark recesses of your mind.

She wakes slowly, keeping her eyes closed, groaning when she shifts to lift her cheek from her arm only to drop her chin down on it. The hand around your ankle tightens slightly, and when she finally, _finally_ opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is your hand, frozen and unmoving and inches away from her cheek. Her gaze climbs from your hesitating hand to your trembling arm to your disbelieving eyes. If she's surprised to see you awake, she doesn't show it, but apparently, being barely awake is for moments that are raw and unfiltered because Jennie untucks her arm from beneath her chin, reaches for your hand before you can pull it back, and coaxes it to her cheek with all the tenderness that _isn't fucking yours to have._

You must give something away – your loneliness or your anger or your damned heart, you don't know – because her gaze softens when she takes it, brown eyes melting into something unbearably fond and sad, her hand tightening around yours ever so slightly. It reminds you that she knows your heart better than you do because how else could she ruin you if she doesn't know how to cut your every heartstring and choke your every heartbeat?

It seems that Jennie isn't awake enough for mercy because she stands and keeps your hand pressed against your cheek. You want to think that this is her pulling away so that you could have a moment to just _breathe_ , but she crawls up your body, her movements stuttering as if she's waiting for you to do something, anything that might protect you from her. You do nothing because you're human and sometimes, you're just not strong enough to do what you need to do to survive.

Jennie realizes this, and you want to know exactly what is giving pieces of yourself away to the one person who shouldn't have them. She's doing her best to balance the rocking chair just enough to sit on your lap, finally letting go of your hand just to wrap her arms around you and Leia, her chin resting on your shoulder, her shaky exhales touching the shell of your ear.

The chair creaks beneath the weight of everything you could possibly want.

You slip your hand from between your bodies to wrap your arm around Jennie's waist and tightening your hold around Leia, protecting them out of instinct.

You hate that.

"Why?" You croak, your forehead pressed against Jennie's shoulder, refusing to move even when Leia lets out a sleepy groan into your body.

_Why are you really here?_

_Why did you avoid me for a year?_

_Why do you keep doing this to me?_

Jennie is silent, and you hate that, too. Your hold around her tightens until you're digging the pads of your fingertips into her flesh. It must be bruising, but Jennie doesn't so much as twitch away from you, and you find yourself needing to bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from begging her to _choose me. For once in your life, choose me._

There's something possessive about the way she holds both of you as if she wants this as much as you do, and that isn't right because she married someone else, the reminder of it resting against the skin of your nape where she has her hand cradling you to her. Not for the first time, the wedding ring decimates everything hopeful in you, and you start crying because that is all you are allowed to do.

"Li," you hear Leia call. "Are you sad?"

You shudder as you attempt to pull yourself together if only for Leia because she doesn't deserve to see exactly what love can do, how much it can hurt, why it is feared instead of celebrated. You try to pull away, but Jennie squeezes your nape and you choke on air and you fall apart all over again. She pulls back, and you dig your fingers deeper into her nightdress and flesh. This time, it seems to hurt her enough because she starts rubbing her thumb on the curve of your jawbone.

"We'll stay," she whispers against your ear, her voice barely above a whisper and breaking in between syllables. "We can stay here for a little while, Li."

She mutters _it's okay_ and _we're here_ and _we can stay_ over and over again until your grip softens and Leia moves to wrap her arms around your torso. The rocking chair is unsteady with all of their movements so you start struggling to swallow your loneliness and longing.

Jennie pulls back when your pathetic sniffles die down to hitching breaths, and you look at her with all the love and anger and despair you have in you, uncharacteristically wanting her to see what loving her has done to you. Her eyes tinge with red the longer she looks at you, but she doesn't look away as if she's accepting your vengeful honesty as her punishment. There's an apology in the way she brushes her knuckles across your cheekbones at the same time Leia whimpers into your shirt. The ice-cold bitterness in your veins melts in response to their warmth, and Jennie watches it happen, looking more desolate than you've ever seen her in the wake of your willingness to forgive her for this moment.

"We'll talk," she promises quietly.

Before you can come up with a response, Leia pulls away from you, immediately resting a hand on your wet cheek. Your attention snaps to her, and you can't help the way you become someone kinder just for her. She wipes the tear tracks on your face clumsily, and not for the first time, you think Leia must be an angel.

"I'm okay, Leia," you tell her, leaning to her touch. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"Pancakes?" She says hopefully like she believes it'll make you feel better.

You lean forward to tug her back into you, tucking her head under your chin and unintentionally meeting Jennie's eyes.

She looks as broken as you feel.

The last of your bitterness drain out of you in a surprised exhale, and Jennie moves to wrap you and Leia back into her arms, the embrace every bit adoring, devastated, and possessive.

This morning, you learn that you're not the only one who longs for things that cannot be yours.

\--------------------

Lisa's early morning breakdown helps, you think as you let the warm water cascade down your back. She had convinced you to take a shower first, promising that she and Leia will have the ingredients ready by the time you find them in the kitchen. You push a hand through your hair, knowing that Lisa only wanted you as far away from her as possible. You remember the way she looked at you like she might whisper _I hate you_ and mean it with everything that she is. The skin of your waist stretches a little when you reach for the shampoo, and you needlessly remember that love can hurt, that being held can be suffocating, that fingertips can carry punishment. You rub a soapy hand across your collarbones, and you remember her hurt and exhaustion and love, _so much love_ , soaking through your clothes.

For a moment, you claw at your own chest – your own attempt at ripping yourself apart.

And then, you sigh, the sound scraping out of your throat, and you remember that breathing can hurt.

You move sluggishly all throughout your shower before wrapping yourself in a towel and stepping out just in time for the sound of laughter to sneak past Lisa's slightly open bedroom door. You freeze, straining your ears, and you don't know what it is you’re looking for, but when you hear Lisa's soft giggles harmonizing with Leia's squealing laughter, you know that you were looking for something to hold on to.

It paints a selfish smile across your lips, and you hate yourself for it, but you're relieved to think that Lisa's early morning breakdown helps enough to bring back a little bit of the woman she was before you tore her apart and forced her to stitch herself back into someone unrecognizable.

As you slip on clothes that still carry the smell of your home in Paris, you decide that this morning, you will let things go. This morning doesn't have enough space for Lisa's loathing and your guilt, and it's not like you'll have tomorrow with her to make up for the disaster this breakfast could be. So, you leave your wedding ring on Lisa's bedside table, stepping out into the hall as the version of yourself who is honest in your desire for a morning with Lisa and Leia and pancakes in a house that could have been home in another life.

You step into the kitchen just in time to see Lisa scoop up your still squealing daughter, both of their faces bright and happy and covered in patches of flour. There's a small handprint on Lisa's cheek and Leia's nose is pure white and you try not to think about what you'd give just to have this image to wake up to for the rest of your life.

Lisa starts tickling Leia, causing the little girl to let out high-pitched, joyous peals of laughter even as she tries to wiggle out of Lisa's hold.

"Are you sorry?" Lisa asks teasingly, her fingers finding all of Leia's ticklish spots.

"Yes!" Leia screams above her breathless giggles, and your heart swells almost painfully when Lisa immediately stops tickling her just to trace the pad of a flour-covered finger from Leia's forehead down to the tip of her nose before leaning in to drop a tender kiss on each of your daughter's eyelids.

Watching them might kill you, so you push yourself off of your hiding place.

"I was told," you start, stifling a chuckle and a sob when two identical pairs of brown eyes snap to you in surprise and childish guilt, "that I'll be able to make pancakes as soon as my shower is over."

They glance sheepishly at each other before Lisa takes a step back from you when she notices how you're smearing the flour on the countertop with your palms. "How am I supposed to make you pancakes when the ingredients are on your faces, hmm?"

Lisa whispers something to Leia, and your daughter looks at you with a dimpled smile. "Sorry, Mommy."

"We'll clean it up," Lisa adds.

"Mm-hmm," you hum mischievously. "You better. But first," you surge forward faster than Lisa can register and cup their cheeks before stepping back just as fast, admiring your handprint on both of their faces.

Lisa splutters in indignation and Leia laughs so fully at the sight of the flour now covering the entire left side of Lisa's face. You think maybe that wasn't the best idea you've ever had when Lisa narrows her eyes at you before whispering in your daughter's ear again, making Leia nod enthusiastically as she scrambles down to the ground. Lisa grabs the package of flour before you can stop her, sprinkling its contents none too gently on her and Leia's hands. They hold out their white palms out to you.

"Mommy, hug?" Leia asks innocently, her arms wide open for you.

Lisa's grin stretches from ear to ear, and you get so lost in the sight of it that you barely have enough time to dodge their advances.

"Don't you dare! I'll put you both in time out!" You tell them as you take multiple rapid steps away from them.

"Mm-hmm," Lisa mocks you, grin firmly in place.

"Lisa, I just showered," you whine, hoping to stop her.

But she quirks an eyebrow at you. "And?"

"Yeah, Mommy," Leia pipes in from her place beside Lisa. "And?"

You don't realize that you're smiling just as wide until you bite your bottom lip, looking for an escape route. You dart to the side, and the kitchen explodes in thundering footsteps, half-heated begging, and full-bellied laughter from all three of you. And you think, as you dodge Lisa's reaching arm and Leia's attempts to wrap herself around your leg, this is _bliss_.

When Lisa finally manages to cage you with her arms, her body warm on your back, you're breathless and panting from having laughed like you haven't in a while. You don't think about it when you lean back into Lisa, letting her pinch your cheeks, successfully smearing flour on your skin, chuckling at the grudging smile on your face. You don't think about it when you press a kiss on her jawline, ignoring how her breath hitches and how her hold around you tighten because the joy in her brown eyes doesn't fade even when you pull back. You don't think about it when you place your hands on her arms, keeping them there as you bend down to let Leia cup both of your cheeks before pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

You don't think because thinking always ruins everything for you and for everyone around you.

Breakfast doesn't get done until half an hour later. It's messy because none of you bother to clean up. It's loud because Lisa entertains Leia's stories like Hank sliding off the porch of Chaeyoung's house is the most interesting thing she's ever heard of. You lose yourself in the sound of words and sentences and love being traded back and forth, the cutlery hitting plates, the occasional gentle rebuke you give when Leia spreads syrup all over her mouth and Lisa somehow ends up having sticky bangs.

Leia leaves you both alone to clean up the mess after breakfast. Lisa doesn't say anything other than her attempts to convince you to let her help you with the dishes. You don't say anything either because this is the first time since you and Leia arrived on her doorstep that Lisa looks at you and doesn't hold you at arm's length. You bump shoulders while you wash the plates, both of you chuckling when Leia laughs at something on the television. You stash away the last plate slowly, trying to prolong the end of the moment and wanting nothing more than _just a little while longer_.

You don't realize you're crying until Lisa presses the back of her hand on your chin, tilting your head up so that you can look at her.

"Jennie…" She whispers, your name falling gracefully from her lips like there hasn't been a day that she didn't call for you.

"Sorry," you mumble as you reach for the hem of her shirt. "I'm sorry."

You don't really know what you're apologizing for, but Lisa seems to get it because she looks at you like she feels what you're feeling, like she doesn't want tomorrow, like this is the happiest you've ever been in a long, long time.

You wonder why love can destroy as much as it can heal.

Lisa leans forward to kiss away your tears and that only makes you cry harder because you don't deserve anything she gives you. She sighs when it becomes clear that you won't stop anytime soon, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and using a hand to cradle the back of your head, guiding you to her collarbone. For a moment, you grip the hem of her shirt with both hands, unsure if you'll survive pulling her closer.

And then, you stop thinking.

You press your palms on her back, press your forehead against her neck, press your heart into her ribs.

You want to come home, so you do.

\--------------------

YG Entertainment can burn to the ground and go straight to hell.

This is your first thought as you step into your studio sometime after lunch. The thought comes to the forefront of your mind effortlessly because it's routine for you to think it as soon as your enter this room. You were always more of a dancer than a singer, but you wished YG gave you the chance to explore everything you could be instead of filling you up with regrets and memories of hate and death threats.

You breathe deeply as you settle back on the plush material of your swivel chair, your body going on auto-pilot as you reach down to plug everything in before tinkering with all the electronics that span your entire mahogany desk. The routine of your actions soothes you enough for your shoulders to sag.

You chose to retreat into this room right after lunch because you'd spent the entire morning making all the wrong decisions by spending more time with someone else's family. You won't kid yourself – you fell in love with them more times than you care to count, and you'd almost asked them to do the one thing they can't do: _stay._ So, when Leia's energy finally ran its course and Jennie moved to take her into your bedroom for a nap, you made a hasty exit, not wanting to have memories of you and Jennie and Leia pretending to be a family in a room where you're already drowning in nightmares.

Jennie let you go without much of a fight, and you suspect that it's because she's feeling a little too vulnerable after breaking down in the kitchen.

You don't think when you pull up the folder for your demos. You select track three, and the gentle chords of a piano filter through the room. You remember a younger version of yourself, caught in the crossfire of self-destruction and healing and not quite either, sitting in front of a piano in your old apartment in Korea.

_Please, picture me in the trees. I hit my peak at seven, feet in the swing over the creek._

You recorded this song with your phone, having neither the time nor the confidence to pick up better equipment. All you had was the image of Jennie in your head, your love choking your life out of you, your mind filled to the brim with questions like _what if I move on_ and _would you come live with me_ and _where am I supposed to go now that you've become someone else's home?_

_Sweet tea in the summer, cross your heart, won't tell no other._

It isn't a secret that you write about Jennie. It couldn't be, not when she's the first person you've ever entrusted with words that left ashes across pages, angry and in love and burning, and you're the first person who's ever had the honor of thumbing through her well-worn notebook before it got stolen. You kept the verses where no one could touch it and ruin it and throw rocks at it, and they have been there ever since because it's not like your company would have given you the freedom to be no one else but yourself to the world.

_Your braids make a pattern, love you to the moon and Saturn, passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long._

You write about her because it's the closest you will ever allow yourself to begging for her everything. You write about her because that was how you deconstructed all the stolen glances and passing touches that were always too fleeting, too temporary to be forever. You write about her because the moment you started, there was no going back, and you couldn't help but scribble verses that told more of your love and want and prayers far more than a hushed _I love you_ ever could.

_And I've been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted. Your dad is always mad and that must be why. I think you should come live with me, and we can be pirates, then you won't have to cry or—_

" _Hide in the closet_ ," Jennie interrupts from your doorway, having forgotten to close it after yourself.

It's self-preservation the way you hit the spacebar before you could even process that you were moving.

"You were never one for subtlety, Lisa-yah. I love it already," she says but doesn't come any closer, and you remember that she knows you. "May I come in?"

And if there ever comes a time when you can say no to her and leave it at that, you think you might celebrate. For now, though, you nod. You have both been scrubbed raw this morning, and there's just nothing in you that can stop her from touching the walls of a room that has seen all that you are, everything broken about you, your pain laid out on the floorboards and sang by keyboards.

She appreciates the cottagecore aesthetic of the room, and you knew she would because you stitched her into your studio just like you did everywhere else in this house that was supposed to be for no one else but yourself. She moves to the corner where everything you have ever held near and dear sat atop what might be an altar, a holy shrine of some sort, an homage to your golden days with three other women who sat with you on top of this hopeless, broken, beautiful world.

You settle back into your chair, watching her laugh when she touches a poster with _Jennie Kim_ added to the line of producers, written in your best handwriting with the boldest market you could find.

"You really kept _that_ version," she says, looking at you with so much awe and delight that you almost look away because it reminds you of mornings spent in her arms, afternoons spent on the couch, and evenings spent in dance studios.

"I don't like discrediting. You deserve more than what they did to you, you know."

"I got used to it," she says, sad but accepting. "You never did."

You don't offer up a response to that because it was absolutely fucked up the way the company picked up Jennie, lay her down a busy street, and watched as a bus run over her before expecting her to get back up and be better than whoever she was before they killed her.

She walks up to you, stopping right beside your swivel chair, her eyes smiling as she brushes her fingers all over your equipment like she's touching gold.

"How long has it been since you were in a studio?" You ask even though you know that she's been spending most of her time on her brand than the label the four of you built from the ground up.

She looks at you, and you watch her break a little bit just for you. "Too long."

And then, she reaches past you to pick up a CD with Thai script written on it. You push yourself back harder against your chair, wishing you had the strength to run away or dig a hole in the ground when she reads, "To Jennie."

She touches the script right below her name, and you offer up an explanation before you can stop yourself, "Folklore."

And then, because you have nothing left to hide at this point, you say, "they're all about you."

Jennie reaches a hand to your bangs, and you let her either because you're a masochist or because it might be enough to convince her that there will be no one else who can love her like you do. "Play it, please," she begs softly, referring to the song that was filtering through your speakers when she came in.

You do because even after all this time, all this hurt, all this fuckery, you still value her opinion above everyone else's.

You watch her throughout the entire song. She hears _and just like a folk song, our love will be passed on_ , and she inhales sharply, leaving you to wonder if she's thinking about bravery and courage and _us against the world_. She hears _I used to scream ferociously_ , and she places a hand on your shoulder, leaving you to wonder if she's thinking about the last time you begged her to choose you. She hears _we'll move to India forever_ , and she smiles brokenly, leaving you to wonder if she's thinking about Paris, dreams of a countryside house, flowers, film cameras, memories hanging across the hall, dogs and cats, and so much _hope_ for a future where it's just the two of you for a year, for forever.

She looks at you as the song ends, and you know that she must be seeing all of you, all of everything that is hers, unclaimed and lonely but hers anyway, grieving a dream that never came to be.

"I'm sorry," you say when the studio falls back into silence. You don't know what you're apologizing for – maybe for writing about her, maybe for the memories that the song is made up of, maybe for loving her. Whatever it is, you don't take it back.

Her brow furrows in confusion. "You have nothing to apologize for. Writing a song for someone is nothing but flattering. Remember?"

You do. You remember simpler times. You remember when being in love with her was nothing else but that. You remember her plucking the strings of her guitar, a pen and paper always ready to take her creativity. You remember her notebook and the songs that she wrote for you. You remember scraps of paper and everything that was about her.

You remember hope.

You remember her when she was someone who could have been yours.

And you don't know when you started drowning, but you should have known that Jennie being here does nothing good to your fragile composure.

"Okay," Jennie whispers. "Then, do you mind if I listen to the rest of this?" She waves the CD at you, a useless clarification because you knew she would ask.

Still, you hesitate. It's a strange thing. You want her to listen to your honesty, your heart because maybe then she'll finally understand the masochist that she's made you out to be, the person who holds on to pathetic things like secrets and pacts and moments, the person she could destroy over and over again without suffering the consequences. At the same time, you don't want her anywhere near your music. It's yours – your anger, your sadness, your pain, your story, your honesty, your creativity, your love. It's you. And you're not sure if she deserves to touch it when you know that her fingertips can do nothing but destroy everything that is yours.

You have never hesitated to share your music with her.

You think that you might have hope after all.

"It's just me," she says when your hesitation becomes all too clear for her to see.

"Exactly," you don't mean to say, but you continue anyway. "It's you. I'm tired, Jennie."

 _Tired of crying over you._

_Tired of trying to survive you._

_Tired of hurting because of you._

_Tired of begging for you._

_Tired of loving you._

She knows you like she knows the back of her hand. You're not surprised when she softens, her polite indifference melting into an honest kind of hurt because she was always the first person who had the _goddamn_ honor of hearing your music before anyone else. Fear flashes in her eyes before she buries it with a hard swallow, and _that_ surprises you enough for the fight in your veins to freeze.

"I'm still me," she says, the hand holding your CD trembling slightly like she's lost herself somewhere in the process of breaking you. "I'm still your biggest fan. I still want to support everything you want to do. Please, Lisa-yah? What's the worst that can happen?"

And that's not a question she should ever ask because every single time you think she can't possibly break you any more than she already has, she finds a way to do just that. You sigh because you're _exhausted_. You reach for the CD and you go through the routine of playing it because it's _her_. You select the first track before you can regret it, and you almost snort because it opens with a guitar – the instrument that you associate with her.

_I want you to know I'm a mirrorball. I'll show you every version of yourself tonight._

You look up at her, and the song all but fades into the background.

She surrenders herself to your music, letting your voice and your melody dig honesty out of her.

_I'll get you out on the floor, shimmering beautiful, and when I break it's in a million pieces._

You're hit by a freight train of memories the moment she closes her eyes, standing only out of habit, your music reaching every nook and cranny of her body. You remember where you wrote this song, the dim lights you used to scribble the first verse on a tissue, the tears you shed when you gave your pain a new form. You remember being hopeful of a new beginning and being terrified of what you'll lose. More than anything, you remember yourself and Jennie in heels, dancing, lost in a moment no one was allowed to see, the last moment you were together before she fell in someone else's arms.

You're going to be sick.

At least, that's what it feels like.

_Hush, when no one is around, my dear, you'll find me on my tallest tiptoes, spinning in my highest heels, love, shining just for you._

You've long ceased to think that your love is something you should be proud of because it's done nothing but teach you that life is unfair, that love isn't enough, that hope is the worst thing to have. Your raw demo fills up the entire room, and you're suffocating under the weight of shame, so much _shame_ , because it's moronic how you thought, even for a moment, that your music could bring her back into your arms. Your love has destroyed you and the people around you, and sitting here, in this room that has Jennie written all over it, watching the love of your godforsaken life listen to exactly how much of an idiot you are, how much you feel for her, how much you would give to be hers, how much—

—it's too much.

You're not a stranger to what will happen. She'll look at you, eyes gentle and proud, and you'll hope. And then, she'll leave and you'll remember why hope _kills_. She'll shower you with compliments and make you believe in yourself. And then, she'll leave and make you believe you're worthless. She'll want to listen to the rest of it, and you'll talk about memories, moments when you fell in love with her over and over again, fleeting glances and touches that made you believe you were meant to be. And then, she'll leave and you'll be silent for days on end because you'll be too busy wondering why, why, _why_ you aren't enough.

_Hush, I know they said the end is near, but I'm still on my tallest tiptoes, spinning in my highest heels, love, shining just for you._

She starts swaying like she's remembering what it feels like to be in your arms, and you feel sick because if she feels the way you do, she would have danced with you forever, unable to think of anything else you'd rather be doing. She mouths the chorus the next time it comes around like they're _her_ words, and you hate that because she's standing tall and beautiful and _happy_ when the sky falls for you every single time you _think_ about her and she looks nothing like the breathing wreckage you are. She smiles by the end of it like she finds comfort in knowing that you love her enough to ink verses on paper, to be more than you thought you could be just for her, to immortalize the depth of what you feel for her, and you loathe that because loving her has been nothing but hell on Earth.

You press the spacebar as soon as it ends, your jaw clenched, your hands balling into fists, trying to keep yourself from falling apart because she is the last person you trust with your vulnerability. You stand up rather abruptly, and she stumbles back in response to your sudden movements.

"What? What is it?" She asks, concerned and confused. "Were you worried I'd hate it? Because I don't – that was beautiful, Li."

_Li._

Fuck.

"It's not that," you push through your gritted teeth. "I can't be here. I can't watch you listen to this."

She reaches for you before she thinks better of it, her hand freezing in the space between you and her. "Why?"

"I remember, and I don't want to," you say, suddenly out of breath and on the brink of hyperventilating. You need to get out. "If you want to listen to the rest, go ahead. But I can't be here. I remember what happens after I wrote that song. I remember how much it killed me when you didn't choose me. I remember how _stupid_ I was for thinking you would. I'm not – I won't – don't make me go through that again. Please. I'm tired. I won't survive it. Please. I—"

"—Lis," she interrupts before you can tell her everything about how much you had hoped to be hers. "It's okay," she says soothingly. "I understand."

_No, you don't._

"You don't have to beg."

_All I do is beg for you._

"If this is too much for you, you can go."

You leave because it's too much the way she still knows exactly what you need.

It's like you haven't changed at all, and you think you may be hopeless after all.

\--------------------

Lisa doesn't look at you all throughout dinner, her attention wholly focused on your daughter. You don't try to get her to do otherwise because you can the red rims around her eyes, the exhaustion in every line on her face, the subtle tremble of her hands. She doesn't offer to help you clean up, and you don't ask her to because Leia demanded an hour of playtime and you're hoping that it would be enough to bring back the light in dim, empty brown eyes. She doesn't come to find you until Leia slumps sleepily on her shoulder, exhausted from saving Lisa from herself even though your daughter cannot possibly know that that's what she's doing. You stand by the bedroom door as Lisa reads her a storybook she keeps in her library, only going in when her voice dies down to a whisper in response to Leia's drooping eyelids. Lisa leaves you to say good night, not bothering to wait for your thanks.

"Good night, sweetheart," you whisper against Leia's temple as soon as the bedroom door closes after Lisa.

Leia looks up at you, and you know that she's halfway to dreamland judging by the foggy look in her eyes. "Li is sad. Can you make her happy, Mommy?"

You swallow harshly at that, unable to comprehend where Leia learned kindness when your husband is the personification of indifference and you are built of nothing but selfishness. "Mommy will try."

"Okay," Leia easily accepts your promise. "G'night, Mommy. Love you."

"I love you, too."

You don't leave the room until you hear soft snores, and even then, you stay a little while longer, trying to collect your thoughts for the conversation you need to have with Lisa.

You did your best to listen to Lisa's demos the way you would a stranger's. You tried not to think about the anger laced in deceptively tender lyrics ( _I'm still on that tightrope_ and _it's another day of waking up alone_ and _cuttin' me open, then healin' me fine_ ), the all-consuming despair of dreams long past and promises broken ( _I still got love for you_ and _we'll move to India forever_ and _we were something, don't you think so?_ ), the absolute hopelessness that no one should ever have to survive ( _I'm still a believer but I don't know why_ and _if my wishes came true, it would've been you_ and _I remember thinkin' I had you_ ). You tried not to let your eyes close, afraid of seeing Lisa drowning in alcohol and bodies and love.

From a producer's standpoint, these songs have potential. The entire tracklist is relatable for anyone who might have loved and everyone else who might have been broken because of it. The lyrics fit the melodies like pieces of a well-crafted puzzle, forming images and stories that are as fond as they are scathing. You know that Lisa recorded these demos with subpar equipment, and you itch to take her hand and lead her into a proper studio because you know that phones and cheap mics couldn't hope to draw out the nuances of Lisa's voice.

You bite your bottom lip.

You've been deceiving yourself into thinking that your cruelty _inspired_ Lisa.

In reality, in truth, in hindsight, you know that your cruelty has done nothing but push Lisa far beyond her limits until she had no choice but to write about you because it is the only way she could survive a heartbreak that spans across years. Lisa was dying over and over again, buried alive by everything she feels for you, struggling to lift the weight of her entire world falling on her shoulders. And you…

You are her torturer, her executioner, her murderer.

You clench your fists on your lap, head bowed, wrists bound, and you must look like the epitome of guilt, a criminal on the stands, someone who deserves nothing less than a lifetime of atonement.

For a second, you wonder if it's worth it.

You didn't come here to fix everything you have destroyed because a weekend isn't enough time for you to pick up the pieces of Lisa that you have ignored for years. You came here simply because you missed her, and you should have known that for as much as you do nothing but hurt her, she makes you think that you can be better than whatever creature you turned out to be without her. You had no plans other than be in her orbit for a little while, just enough to get you through the storm that's coming to upend everything you have fought to have.

You should have known that being with Lisa is never as simple as that.

You had been prepared for the guilt and the regret and the self-mutilation that comes with seeing Lisa breathe only out of habit. You weren't prepared for neither the demos nor the desperation that you feel because of it. You didn't come here with the want to atone for your sins, but, now more than ever, you want to do nothing but that.

But is it worth it?

Is it worth it to drag Lisa back into your orbit when you know that she has been doing her best to move on from the destruction you've caused? Is it worth it to fix whatever you have with her when the kindest thing you can do at this point is to let her go? Is it worth it to be brave now when Lisa has hopelessly accepted that being terrified is all you can be?

You make coffee in a daze, your mind heavy with the weight of uncertainties and doubt and utter selfishness. You have no answers to your questions, and you know that talking to Lisa is the only way for you to decide whether you should take the gamble, no matter how much of an uphill battle it looks to be.

You find her in the gazebo, her knees tucked to her chest in anticipatory defense, her dull doe eyes tracking your movements as you slip through the door before sitting beside her on the daybed.

"Hey," you raise the mugs like you would a white flag.

Lisa's eyes water at the sound of your voice, and your chest gives a painful tug at the thought that hearing you speak is enough to tear her walls into ruins. She says nothing as she reaches for her mug. You sit in the midst of your thoughts and hers, both of you unsure and raw and so devastatingly sad.

"Why are you here?" Lisa breaks the silence, her eyes firmly trained forward, still refusing to look at you. "The truth this time."

You heed her order because what else can you do? "I missed you," you say, resolutely ignoring the way it hurts when you hear her scoff. "I do, I still miss you. And that's my fault, I know. The year I was avoiding you—" you flinch as the truth slips past your lips, heavy on your tongue, guilt in your stomach. "My marriage is falling apart. I didn't want to see you because you remind me of what I deserve."

"Is he hurting you?" She asks, her tone softer despite the forced politeness in her question.

You don't deserve her. "Not physically."

She nods, and it's stifling because it has never been this hard to get her to talk to you.

"I had enough of missing you, and that's why I'm here now," you offer up another truth, your selfishness coming to the surface. "I wanted to be reminded of warmth and love because I've been missing it even before my marriage started falling apart."

The liquid in Lisa's mug moves as she clutches it with both hands. "Do you ever think about how fucked up it is that you get all those things from me and all I get from you is heartbreak?"

She's defending herself, burning you with her words, and you don't blame her for the hurt that settles like lead in your heart. "I do. Would you believe me if I told you that I never wished to turn you into this?"

She looks at you for the first time, her brows furrowed with the effort of trying to keep herself together. "I don't know. I don't know who you are anymore, Jennie."

You hate that because you don't recognize yourself anymore, too, and you don't know how you became someone who could stomach causing this much hurt on the one person who deserves nothing but your best self. "I," you start and falter, your emotions thick in your throat. "I want to be me again. I want to be who I was before I became whoever I am now."

"Did you think you're most yourself when you're with me?"

This time, you don't hesitate. "I do."

"Then why am I not enough for you, Jennie?"

At that, you place your mug on the table, resting your elbows on your knees, lowering your head into your hands. "I don't know. I don't know why I keep hurting you. I don't know why I can't choose you."

Lisa lets out a bark of humorless laughter, loud and empty and a little bit insane. "That's bullshit. You know why," she says, abandoning all pretenses of the kindness you never deserved in the first place. "You've always wanted to be nothing less than perfect. I don't fit in that narrative. Being gay was never an option for you – you never could find the courage to accept everything I have to offer, regardless of the label that might be attached to you."

"Do you blame me for that?" You ask, taking her anger, wanting to understand what she wants from you even though you already know the answer.

Lisa looks away, her jaw clenched. "No," she says like she's unwilling to say it. "No," she says a little more firmly. "Not after what the world did to me."

You lift your head at that, strangely comforted by the knowledge that the tender-hearted Lisa is still in her somewhere. This conversation has been a mess of truths the moment it started, and you don't try to fix it or direct it.

You have had enough of orchestrating battlefields just to save yourself.

You gift her your first act of selflessness. "What do you want from me, Lisa?"

Her eyes find yours, and your heart seizes, breathless in the face of her decision to leave her defenses altogether. There is nothing violent in the way she looks at you, her hatred melting into desperation, her anger giving way to love, her pain turning into sadness. She places her own mug on the table, dropping her feet onto the ground. She reaches for you, and you don't do anything to stop the whimper that crawls up your throat as you watch her hesitate like she's expecting to be burnt. She pushes forward and sinks her hands into your hair, nails scratching your scalp just the way you like it.

You start crying.

She gifts you her first act of selfishness. "Ni," she whispers but doesn't tug you closer to her. "I want you to let me go."

You stop breathing, your lungs nothing but useless weight in your chest. Your heart breaks at the plea in her tone, the earnestness in which she says it, the defeat in the spaces of _let me go_. Distantly, you wonder if this is how she felt when she kept giving you chances, kept loving you despite everything, kept begging for you before you walked away. It feels horrible – the kind of pain that is the culmination of a lifetime of regret and hopelessness. You don't think you can survive this, and you don't know how she did, how she's still here, how she didn't choose relief. You tremble, and you realize that _this_ must be what it feels like to have the world on your shoulders.

She sees the answer before you can voice it, and she sighs, accepting the return of your selfishness like she expected it. You don't think she sees the fear that you feel in your veins. You don't think she understands that it's a different kind of fear, that it's no longer the fear of what being different would mean for you, that it's become the fear of finally _losing her_. It freezes you, and you can do nothing when her hand falls almost lifelessly into the space between your bodies.

"What did you think of the demos?" She asks, oblivious to the tearing and wrecking and destroying happening inside you.

"I—" you cut yourself off, struggling to keep to pull yourself together and being given no time to do it. You barrel straight into the gamble you didn't think was worth it. "I want to produce it."

Shock renders her speechless, and you jump at the opportunity recklessly, wild and untamed and messy – everything you never thought you could be.

"They're," you falter, doing your best to gather your thoughts. "It's beautiful. Everything you make is beautiful. But you've outdone yourself this time. I want to produce it because you deserve what will come from it. I want to give you that."

"You're leaving," she halts what would have been a speech about how her songs made you feel.

You nod, figuring there will be time for that later, when you're not so desperate that you're so close to kneeling at her feet. "I won't be here tomorrow," you whisper. "So, follow me to Paris."

This time, Lisa's shock abruptly gives way to anger, and she shoots up to her feet and starts pacing in front of you, looking every bit like a cornered animal. Forgetting self-preservation, you follow her, stepping in front of her to halt her movements.

"You're asking me to go to Paris?" She spits, and there's none of the innocent hope in the way she once said _we'll live in Paris for a year_.

Still, you persist, no longer out of cruelty despite the way she breaks at your request. "Yes," you murmur as you step closer to her, hurting at the way she steps back immediately. You're afraid that you have finally reached her limit, but this is nothing compared to how you felt when you realized how close you are to losing her. "The label has a branch there—"

"—I know, I was there when we signed off on it," she cuts you off, unwilling to give you a chance to change her mind. "You weren't."

You take that too because you deserve it. "Please," you beg, "let me produce your album. Let me tell the world that you are talented in more ways than one. Let me show the world that you deserve more than I've been doing to you. Let me make it up to you."

"So, this is pity, then?"

"No," you cut her off before she can throw accusations at you. "No. This is me asking you for time."

Her face crumples, and you don't understand how you keep destroying her. "I have spent my whole life giving you my time, my everything. _How_ can you stomach asking me for more?"

You let out a shaky exhale, but still, you persist. Even if this is how you lose her, you persist. It's a gamble after all. "I'm asking you for time because I'm 31 but you're not 30 yet."

_If we're not married by the time you're 31 and 30, let's marry each other._

She starts crying at that, and you wonder when hope became such a wretched thing. You're giving her hope, and she collapses because of it. You're giving her hope just when she's finally accepting that you will never be hers. You're giving her hope right here and now, and it's the cruelest thing you have ever had to do.

You feel like you're going to be sick, like you won't be able to look at yourself in the mirror later, like you just want to stop. But you don't take it back.

"You asked me to let you go," you sob. "And I'm asking you for time because I don't want to. I don't know what a month will do, but I need your time one last time, Lisa. I'm telling you the truth when I say that your songs deserve to be out there. But more than anything," you step forward and reach for her hand before she can the hurricane that you are. "I need you to hold on a little longer. Just a little bit, just for as long as it'll take for me to prove to you that I am more than the coward I've become, that I can be someone you deserve."

"You don't deserve me, Jennie. Not anymore," she says as her hand tightens around yours in a punishing grip.

You don't pull away. "I know," you whimper. "I know. One last chance, Lisa. That's all I'm asking. And if I can't be even a little bit of what you deserve, I'll—" your heart constricts in your chest, and you dig your nails into the skin of your own palm. "I'll let you go."

It's the most painful and devastating truth you have ever had to offer, but you mean it because you have allowed yourself to be selfish for too long.

"Please," you can't help but beg. " _Please_."

She inhales sharply, straightening to her full height, beautiful even in her anger and spite.

She doesn't say anything.

It's not a no. It's not a yes.

You'll take it.

\--------------------

When it's time for Jennie and Leia to leave, you can't find it in yourself to ask them to stay for another hour, another day, another week.

You haven't allowed yourself to process any of what happened last night. You didn't sleep even after asking Jennie to leave you alone, afraid that you'll end up heeding your request. Instead, you stared into your half-empty mug for hours, trying to figure out how you still manage to keep breathing. You had gotten up as soon as dawn touched the horizon, moving on auto-pilot and nothing else.

You'd hurt Jennie.

You know this because, for the first time in a long while, she was honest.

You have been asking her to be just that for years, and now that she finally, _finally_ let you read her like an open book, you don't know what to do with what you found. She's slowly turning into a masochist, taking all your anger and suffocating herself with guilt. She never fought back, and you wish she had because you know that it won't be long before you feel guilty for the way you were relentless in making her feel like she doesn't deserve anything good. You know the regret will follow, but for now, you have nothing.

There's nothing when you watch Jennie stand up from where she'd been packing the last of her things. There's nothing when Leia turns to you with teary eyes, asking for a hug you're willing to give. There's nothing when Jennie kisses your cheek, whispers _I'm sorry_ against your skin, presses her palm against your chest.

You don't say goodbye and neither do they, and you're almost grateful because other than hope, _goodbye_ is yet another death sentence you have been forced to survive time and time again.

Jennie takes Leia's hands and gives you one last look that might be worry before turning to your front door just when you see a shine in her eyes that tells you she's about to cry. She drags their luggage with her, her footsteps soft and halting, and you don't understand what she's waiting for. You have never seen her struggle with leaving. You don't know what that means.

She opens your front door, and because you have learned a little bit about saving yourself, you don't watch them leave.

You make your way to your kitchen, pulling out your finest bottle of whiskey, and setting a glass on the counter. You fill it up to the brim, and you screw the cap back on, the scent of high-proof alcohol invading your nostrils. You lay your phone right next to the glass, and then, you grip the counter, hoping the marble will break beneath your palms.

On any other day, you would be sobbing, curled up on the kitchen floor, dying with every breath you are forced to take. You would be grieving the weekend that felt like a dream come true despite everything else that felt like torture. You would be trying your best not to follow after them. You would be unbearably lonely and undeniably alone.

But today, there is nothing.

You should fear it, you think as your ribs curl inward, trying to look for something to protect, something to hold together only to find nothing.

You eye the full glass of whiskey, wondering if it will burn as it slithers down your throat and your empty stomach, wondering if it'll help you make bad decisions that'll hurt or push you to relief, wondering if it'll make you feel something, anything.

It's tempting.

Self-destruction is always easy. You don't have to think about anyone else's feelings but yours. You don't have to take care of yourself or anyone else, for that matter. You don't have to force yourself to think that there is more to life than heartbreak. It's easy. You have no one here with you, and you have nothing but a full glass of whiskey. The love of your life just walked out the door. The little girl you treat as your own has just left the home you built for her. You have every justification you need. It would be so easy.

But you have learned.

You toss the whiskey down the drain.

You pick up your phone.

You call your therapist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how are you doing? :> i wanted to update today because it's my birthday, and i wanted to give something to you guys for the support you've been giving cottagecorkim and i even before today. 
> 
> thank you for making me feel like i wanna live through another year of life, no matter how hard or messy it may be. i can't tell you guys how much you've helped me through literally everything.
> 
> that said, i'm on twitter (@snowanwolves). i'm also on ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/snowandwolves) for any of y'all who may have a little extra love to give in support of my caffeine addiction. :D
> 
> songs so far cos i keep forgetting to include this:
> 
> your song - elton john  
> a soulmate who wasn't meant to be - jess benko  
> seven, mirrorball, the 1, invisible string, august - taylor swift

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, if this fic is familiar to you, then it's probably because it's the very same "lovesong" from the brilliant cottagecorekim. I don't know what the fuck she was drinking when she decided to give this fic to me, but please give her the love she deserves! We'd also like to credit baeminhyuk for inspiring us to create this entire mess HAHA. 
> 
> As always, I'm on Twitter (@snowandwolves). If you have some extra love to feed my caffeine addiction, I'd be eternally grateful (and probably be a blubbering mess on Twitter) if you could head over to: Ko-fi.com/snowandwolves. See you guys on the next one, whether here or on IKYKWK!


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